Lost and Found
by bowtruckles
Summary: Two birthdays, thirty years apart.


_A/N: Hermione turns 40 today - so I wrote fic about it :) Thanks to aloemilk for giving it her magic touch! More notes at the end._

* * *

_September, 1989_

Hermione walked slowly through the rows of desks, her patent-leather saddle shoes ringing out against the linoleum floor. The stack of delicate, pale pink envelopes in her arms was so tall that she could hardly see over it, but with each desk she passed, it grew gradually smaller, and soon she could hold them all easily in her hands.

Few faces looked her way as she passed. One boy, Marcus Abernathy, picked up the envelope in his pudgy hands with a look of curiosity mixed with disdain.

"What's this?" He ripped recklessly through the flap of the envelope, even though Hermione's mum had told her not to bother with sealing them properly, with the glue, since they weren't going into the post.

"It's an invitation to my birthday party," said Hermione, feeling her cheeks go pink as Marcus stared at her, his expression blank. "It's on Saturday, the sixteenth of September - well, my actual birthday is on the nineteenth, but since I'll be ten, my parents said I could invite everyone in the class-"

"Oh."

Marcus shoved the invite, pink envelope and all, into his rucksack; the paper caught on the zipper and tore. Without another glance at Hermione, he spun in his seat and started a conversation with Henry Grant.

Well, thought Hermione sniffily, she did not want an unmannered lump like him at her party anyway. She and her mum had planned a very classy sort of day, with tea and finger sandwiches and elegant pastries, and she didn't want any messy boys breaking the china or chewing with their mouths open.

She turned down another row of desks, surveying the rest of the classroom as she went. Most of the envelopes were still right where she had left them, neatly in the upper left corner of the desk. Which was not cause for concern; once everyone stopped socializing, they would definitely notice the invitation.

As she approached the back of the classroom, her stomach turned over. Miriam Palmer was holding court with her usual small crowd of admirers, who typically didn't pay Hermione much mind. But then again, they had invited her to work on that group project during maths last week, and since then, Miriam had even started waving hello to her during morning drop-off. Besides, she and her friends did seem like the type to enjoy a nice, sophisticated tea party…

Squaring her shoulders, Hermione marched up to them.

"Hi," she said, unsure why her voice was shaking. "Erm, it's going to be my birthday next week, and I'm having a party-" She thrust the envelopes at them, ignoring the furtive glances they exchanged. "It's on Saturday, the sixteenth, even though my birthday is on the nineteenth - it isn't like you can have a birthday party on a Tuesday, can you, not if you want anyone to be there - well-" She swallowed. "You'll need to RSVP by the twelfth, my parents' phone number is on the invitation, so just have your mum or dad ring to let them know you're coming."

Miriam's lips stretched wide over her face. "Thank you," she chirped, pushing her silky blonde hair over her shoulder. "It's very nice of you to invite me, but I'm afraid I can't make it. I have a prior engagement."

Even to Hermione's young ears, the words sounded stilted and rehearsed - like Miriam's mum had taught them to her.

"Really?" blurted Hermione. "What is it?"

"I have a prior engagement," Miriam repeated, "but thank you."

With a hurried nod, Hermione turned on her heel and started toward her desk at the front of the classroom. Seconds later, there was a clatter as all of Miriam's notebooks and pencils fell suddenly from her desk to the floor.

It wasn't until the Thursday night before the party that Hermione's mum knocked on the door to her bedroom.

Sitting up on the bed, Hermione carefully placed a bookmark into her copy of _Emma. _"Come in."

Her mum entered and perched on the end of the bed. "Hermione, dear," she began gently, in the same tone she had used when Hermione came down with pneumonia last year, "I haven't heard from any mums and dads about your party. Didn't you pass out the invitations?"

"Yes," replied Hermione warily. "Everyone got one, I made sure."

And she had. She had watched as they went tucked into bookbags or between the pages of notebooks, watched as people pulled the hand-written invitation from the envelope to read it. They were taking them home, she had told herself, so that they could ask permission from their parents to attend. Part of her had really believed it, too.

Something flickered on her mum's face. "Well, it must just be a busy weekend for a lot of people. But your Gran will be there, and all your cousins, too - Freya and Gemma are so excited. It'll still be a really lovely party, dear, okay?"

"It's fine," said Hermione, turning back to her book, desperate to escape into a fictional world. "I didn't want a big party anyway."

•••

_September, 2019_

"So." Ron nudged her ankle with his toe. "What do you want to do for your birthday?"

"Nothing," replied Hermione, never lifting her gaze from the file on her lap.

"You never let me do anything for your birthday."

"Because I never want to."

"Oh, come on." Ron inched closer to her on the sofa. "It's going to be your fortieth-"

"Don't remind me-"

"-so we can't do nothing."

"We really can." She planted the files on the coffee table and shifted, pulling a knee onto the cushion to face him. "It's just another year, it's not a big deal to me. It won't be much fun anyway, the kids are both away at school now and I can't stop worrying about how Hugo's settling in."

"But he's doing fine," said Ron, surprised. "Neville said in his letter last week, he's doing really well."

"Oh, I know, I'm sure he's doing well in classes, he's smart, but Neville's not there in the dorms or the common room, he doesn't know what really goes on with the other kids, you know?"

Ron paused, watching her, and then scooted until they shared the same cushion, his arm snaking around Hermione's shoulders.

"I know, but remember? Neville said he's been sitting with the same group of kids every day in the Great Hall?"

"With them or just near them?"

"Hermione," said Ron patiently. "He's making friends. He's all right."

"I suppose."

Logically, her worry was both useless and unfounded. Her son took after his father: he was a bright, friendly, outgoing child, and he possessed not an ounce of shyness. He was not the sort of student who would correct his classmates when they answered a question wrong or try to tell them what to do. He had older cousins watching out for him and a sister who had no qualms about telling anyone what was on her mind.

Ron was right; Hugo would be just fine. But fitting in seamlessly, without pain or struggle, was still something rather difficult for Hermione to comprehend.

"So, your birthday," Ron piped up after a minute or two of contemplative silence, kissing the side of her head. "Why don't we just go to dinner? We could invite Harry and Ginny, George and Ange - I'm sure my mum and dad will want to do something-"

"That's fine," she interrupted with a steadying hand on his leg. "You can invite whomever, but nobody needs to make a big fuss, it falls on a Thursday and everyone's got work and kids and their own lives to deal with. It's fine if it's just the two of us."

"All right," said Ron, taking his arm back and pushing up off the sofa. As Hermione pulled her files back into her lap, he wandered into the kitchen, where she could hear him opening cupboards. "What kind of cake d'you want?" he called.

"What?"

"For your birthday." The cupboard hinges creaked again. "I'm gonna bake you a cake."

"I'm not turning seven, Ron, I don't need a cake-"

"If you don't choose, I'll just decide on my own, and what if I feel like making a carrot cake that day-"

"No!" she shouted back, thankful he couldn't see her face scrunched up in silent laughter. "Chocolate, then. Please."

"Chocolate it is."

In the days that followed, each and every evening was marked by Ron returning home from the joke shop, kissing Hermione on the cheek (or forehead, or lips, or on the back of her neck to make gooseflesh pop up on her skin) and advising her of another friend or family member who would be attending her birthday. Which was lovely, truly. He was the one sending owls to everyone, and popping round the market to pick up more cocoa powder for her cake, and contacting the restaurant to reserve a table. She was not unaccustomed to this sort of behavior from him - he never seemed to realize how wonderful he was unless she told him, and even then, he never believed it was anything remarkable - but more than once she thought of stopping him, pulling the quill and parchment from his hands and telling him that what was doing was lovely, but he didn't have to do it.

Rain spattered the windows as dusk gave way to dawn on the morning of the nineteenth of September, not that Hermione really noticed. Her attention had shifted wholly to the man currently dragging his lips up the column of her throat with near-agonizing laziness.

"Morning," he mumbled against the edge of her jaw before brushing their lips together. "Happy birthday."

She laughed against his kiss. "Is it?"

"It's about to be."

He kissed her again, deeper, and she sank back into the lush blankets as the buttons loosened on her pyjama top…

It was rather worth her tardiness to work. Her mood now brightened, she set to work reading through old case law in preparation for an upcoming hearing, and became so involved that she hardly noticed when lunchtime arrived and brought with it a flurry of owls to the Ministry offices from all over Britain. One particular tawny owl came tumbling through the private fireplace in Hermione's office, two parcels tied tightly to his leg.

She jumped up from her desk to help him, setting him upright and fetching the cargo. Both were clumsily wrapped in brown paper and addressed in felt-tip marker:

_Hermione Granger (aka Mum)_

_Ministry of Magic_

_Department of Magical Law Enforcement_

_London, England_

She fumbled with the string on the first parcel before finally using her wand to severe it, and then carefully peeled away the paper without ripping it. Inside she found a folded sheet of parchment and a pair of mittens, hand-knitted with deep aubergine wool.

_Dear Mum,_

_Happy birthday! I hope you like the mittens and that they fit. I made them myself but Lucy's the one who taught me to knit, she said there's a spell to make it go faster but she wouldn't teach me that part of it so I did it the Muggle way._

_I hope you have a great day!_

_Love, _

_Rose_

Hermione took a moment to imagine her daughter - who played Beater on the Quidditch team and bore perpetually-skinned knees as a child and received detention in her first year for trying to find a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest - sitting down and quietly learning how to knit from one of her cousins.

Hermione set the mittens down, gingerly, and picked up the next parcel. It was significantly heavier, and took longer to unwrap thanks to the sheer volume of Spello-tape that her son had used to secure it. Inside, she found another folded bit of parchment and a slightly lopsided ceramic mug glazed in blue paint.

Where would he have even gotten the clay to make it? There was an art supply store in Hogsmeade, but first-years didn't even have access to the village. He had to have enlisted the help of one of his older cousins.

_Dear Mum,_

_I hope you like this mug, it's so you have something for when you're working at night and want a cup of tea. Or you can keep it in your office, that's okay too. Your other mug has a chip in it so I thought you might want a new one._

_Love,_

_Hugo _

_P.S. Happy birthday! I forgot to write that before._

All these years, she had thought Ron was the one orchestrating her birthday and holiday gifts from the kids - and when they had been toddlers, of course he had been, just as she had done for him. But now they were miles away, and they had taken time away from their friends and Quidditch and the unending magic of Hogwarts to do something for her. She didn't even care if Ron had sent them letters to remind them: they'd still actually done it.

"Stay put," she snapped at the owl, who had stretched his wings as though considering flight. "I've got letters for you."

Pulling out a piece of stationery and a quill, she began to compose her words of gratitude to her children.

"Of course they got you gifts," said Ron, though he grinned, when Hermione showed him her bounty that evening at home. His sleeves were shoved up to his elbows and his hands were lightly dusted in flour. The work surface was covered in various measuring cups, sacks of sugar, a carton of eggs. "Our kids are good kids, y'know."

"Yes, of course I know that." Hermione shrugged off her cloak and started toward the hall closet. "I just didn't really expect - well. What time is our dinner reservation?"

"Seven," replied Ron, holding a teaspoon up to eye level as he poured vanilla extract into it. "And don't worry, I've got something for you too."

Hermione paused in the process of toeing off her shoes. "I wasn't worrying - you don't ever have to get me anything."

"Well, just so that you know that it's something more than just, er, what I gave you this morning." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her and dumped the vanilla into a mixing bowl.

With a playful roll of her eyes, Hermione retreated to their bedroom to change.

By the time she emerged, he was sliding the cake tins into the oven, and then he went to have a shower, since he never could manage to bake anything without making a mess of himself. He had timed it out perfectly; the sponge cake had cooled with just enough time for Ron to frost it before they had to depart for the restaurant.

"Want to have a slice now?" asked Ron, studying his handiwork. "A pre-dinner snack?"

"You'll ruin your appetite."

Ron shook his head in affected disappointment. "After seventeen years of marriage, I really thought you'd know me better than to think my appetites are at all ruinable."

"Oh, come on," said Hermione, dragging him to the door, "let's go."

She was not sure what she had envisioned for the evening when they arrived at Il Stregone, the new Italian restaurant near the Leaky Cauldron. Quite a large part of her had imagined that their grand table of well-wishers would need to be slowly broken down as guests failed to appear, until she and Ron ended up tucked away at a small table in the back of the restaurant. She would have been perfectly fine with that. It was unreasonable to expect everyone to drop their lives, on a weekday, just because the anniversary of her birth had come around again.

Instead, they were swept to a back room of the restaurant, where they found Harry and Ginny already waiting for them, glasses of wine in their hands.

"Happy birthday!" Harry exclaimed, rushing over, and Hermione found herself enveloped in what would be the first of many hugs this evening.

Ginny hugged her next, and placed a glass of red wine into Hermione's hands, and then George and Angelina arrived, the latter gifting her a bottle of champagne, the former tossing out good-natured jibes about Hermione's old age.

And so it went: Hermione's parents arrived with Molly and Arthur, who had helped them access Diagon Alley; then Bill and Fleur with more champagne; Charlie, who had spent the last month in Britain working with a colony of Welsh Green dragons; and finally Percy and Audrey, who apologized profusely for being late, though it wasn't even ten minutes past.

Hermione had never been one for big celebrations. She and Ron had not even had a proper wedding, choosing to elope instead, and she had never once regretted it. But as she looked around, watching as Harry clandestinely stole a noodle from Ginny's plate and as her parents attempted to explain their mobile phones to Arthur, it did not feel one bit like the sort of forced social gathering that she despised. It just felt like people she loved, all in one room.

"We don't have to stay late," Hermione remarked to Ron even as, across the table, Harry ordered another bottle of Chianti. "Everyone's got work tomorrow, they shouldn't feel obligated-"

"Hermione," said Ron gently. "Look around you. Everyone's having a good time, I didn't have to twist anyone's arm to get them to be here."

She looked around again; it did appear that Ron was right.

"But anyway," Ron continued, and his hand slipped into hers under the table, "I've got to talk to you about your gift, because you've got a couple choices of what it can be."

"I told you that you don't have to get me anything-"

"Option one," said Ron loudly over her, making her shake her head as she laughed, "is going down to the Magical Menagerie and picking out a new kitten."

"A kitten?!"

"If you want-"

"The thing about it is that if you're going to get one kitten, you're better off getting two at once," Hermione explained, mind racing about a thousand miles a minute, "since Kneazles are such social animals, they learn from each other-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Ron held up his free hand. "Who said anything about a Kneazle? I was talking about just a, y'know, regular cat-"

"Crookshanks was part-Kneazle," Hermione said firmly, "and he was the most wonderful cat in the whole world-"

"He definitely was one of a kind," said Ron carefully. "But all right, I hear you about the two kittens thing. I'll let you think about it. The other choice is a holiday, just me and you. I was thinking Paris."

"Ron," said Hermione, even as her heart swelled with affection for him, "that sounds incredible, really, but it's too much - even tonight is so much more than enough, I don't need anything else."

"I know you don't need it, but I want to do it." He dropped a kiss on her cheek and reached for the half-full bottle of wine on the table in front of them. "Just think about it."

And she did. She actually couldn't stop thinking about it, even as they hugged everyone goodbye on their way out of the restaurant, even as they changed into pyjamas upon their arrival home. They sat on stools at the island counter, cups of tea accompanying thick, fudgey slices of cake, Hermione drinking from her new blue mug.

She had tried to protect herself from it. She had, countless times, tried to tell Ron that there was no point in making a fuss over it, that it was just another birthday and everyone had them so there was nothing special about hers. But yet everyone had been there, and they'd stayed late and George even had tried to coax her out to the pubs after, but she had resisted. Her kids had owled handmade presents all the way from Scotland.

"Ron," she said, breaking the easy silence between them. He turned to look at her, licking chocolate frosting from his fork. "Have I ever told you about my tenth birthday?"

"Don't think so," he said. "You told me about your eighth, I think-"

"Oh, the biking trip," Hermione recalled with a little chuckle. "Yeah, that didn't go so well."

"But tenth, I don't think so." He poked his fork into his slice of cake. "Why, what happened?"

"Nothing," said Hermione truthfully, smiling at him. "It's not important."

* * *

_Okay, so. 1: I don't accept Cursed Child as canon (except for its assertion that Ron and Hermione still make out in her office, which I am fully on board with) so I don't see her being Minister of Magic at this point. 2: Il Stregone = "the sorcerer" in Italian, according to Google Translate. Super creative, I know._

_Thank you for reading! Please review :)_


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